Peter Thiel, the 29‑billion‑dollar founder of Palantir and PayPal, rattled audiences at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club in late 2025 by labeling the Antichrist as a Luddite who would halt progress. Protesters in devil costumes marched outside, echoing chants that framed tech elites as saviors and climate activists as villains.

Thiel’s speech sparked a backlash that mirrored the broader clash between Silicon Valley’s ambition and regulatory resistance. Tech leaders now frame AGI as the Second Coming, while critics label any oversight as a threat to innovation. This rhetoric underpins a $670 billion private‑sector AI push that dwarfs historic infrastructure budgets.

Andreessen Horowitz, the firm that manages $90 billion in assets, has shifted from Democratic support to backing GOP candidates, channeling $5.5 million in 2024 toward Donald Trump. Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos and Pichai followed, collectively donating $26 million to Trump’s inauguration and positioning themselves beside the former president’s cabinet.

Tech’s $670 billion investment—more than the 1850s railroad build at 2 % of GDP—demonstrates private capital’s willingness to bankroll AI breakthroughs while sidestepping public oversight. The result is a tightly knit coalition of founders, investors, and political donors that treats regulation as a direct threat to technological progress.